A San Francisco article gives some insight into how the decision to make a “sanctuary city”, has now made them a safe harbor for illegal alien criminals, murderers and rapists.  Alternate headline: “Donald Trump Is Right”.

Kate steinleCALIFORNIA – With the awful, senseless shooting of Kate Steinle, and the arrest of an undocumented immigrant who was convicted of seven felonies and deported five times, people are asking questions about San Francisco’s wrong-headed and dangerous Sanctuary City policy. I’ve been following the story for years. Here is some background.

I remember writing on it in 2007 here when then San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom (now Lieutenant Governor) announced the city would not cooperate with federal immigration “raids,” in keeping with a Sanctuary City policy adopted in 1989. Quoth the mayor:

“I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with this city to cooperate in any way shape or form with these raids. We are a sanctuary city, make no mistake about it.”

The next year, the city’s sanctuary policy was shown for the danger to public safety it had become.  On June 22, 2008, Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant with a history of violence, shot and killed Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, because he wrongly thought one of the Bologna sons was a gang rival, it turned out.

The killings on June 22, 2008, gained national attention after The Chronicle reported that city juvenile-justice officials, relying on San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policy, had twice shielded Ramos, a suspected illegal immigrant from El Salvador, from possible deportation after he committed a gang-related assault and an attempted robbery as a minor.

Attorney General Kamala Harris, then San Francisco District Attorney, made bad decisions that shielded violent criminals. As I wrote before Californians elected her Attorney General in 2010:

City officials refused to notify federal immigration officials when police arrested juvenile offenders – or offenders who claimed to be juveniles – on felony charges.

Under her watch (for lack of a better word), the city flew drug offenders to Honduras. When federal authorities stopped this practice in 2008, the city sent eight Hondurans who had been convicted to group homes, from which they escaped.

One Sunday afternoon in June 2008, San Franciscan Tony Bologna, 48, was driving home with his sons, Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16. All three were shot dead. Police charged Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who had been arrested for several felonies as a youth but apparently benefited from the city’s liberal sanctuary policy.

Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken had found that 30 percent of undocumented immigrant offenders who claimed to be juveniles actually were adults. Only then did the city change the policy.

UAC middleschoolers 2

The city also pushed for policies to prevent city authorities from impounding cars driven by unlicensed drivers as part of its Sanctuary City policy. Now District Attorney and then Police Chief George Gascón supported the program, as I reported here. So the city had gone from defending illegal immigration to unlicensed driving.

Now we learn Francisco Sanchez, who was arrested for allegedly shooting Steinle, had seven felony convictions and was deported five times.  (read more)

 

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